PM accuses Opposition of fleeing accountability after Parliament walkout

DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­[email protected]

A war of words has erupt­ed be­tween the Gov­ern­ment and the Op­po­si­tion af­ter a dra­mat­ic walk­out in Par­lia­ment over a mo­tion tar­get­ing two Op­po­si­tion sen­a­tors, fur­ther deep­en­ing ten­sions in­side the leg­is­la­ture.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has ac­cused the Op­po­si­tion of flee­ing ac­count­abil­i­ty and be­ing con­trolled by what she de­scribed as “elite fi­nanciers”, while the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) in­sist­ed it was forced to with­draw from what it called an un­fair and abu­sive de­bate.

The con­fronta­tion un­fold­ed fol­low­ing a de­bate on a mo­tion to adopt a re­port of the Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion and Ap­pro­pri­a­tions Com­mit­tee (PAAC) on the con­duct of a mem­ber.

The Gov­ern­ment then sig­nalled its in­ten­tion to have the mo­tion amend­ed to call for con­dem­na­tion of Sen­a­tors Faris Al-Rawi and Janelle John-Bates and to urge Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les to ad­vise the Pres­i­dent to re­voke their ap­point­ments.

Ten­sions es­ca­lat­ed in the cham­ber as Cou­va North MP Jear­lean John crit­i­cised the Op­po­si­tion, as mem­bers walked out.

“A broth­er­hood of wrong­do­ing. A broth­er­hood of wrong­do­ers. Weak, that’s the point! Cow­ards.”

Barataria/San Juan Sad­dam Ho­sein, who pi­lot­ed the mo­tion, de­scribed the mat­ter as “un­law­ful, con­temp­tu­ous con­duct” and ac­cused the Op­po­si­tion Leader of fail­ing to act.

He point­ed to doc­u­ment ed­its linked to the com­mit­tee process, stat­ing, “Ms John-Bates made 37 ed­its over a pe­ri­od of 25 min­utes. Sen­a­tor Al-Rawi made about 175 changes to that doc­u­ment over a two-day pe­ri­od. So you un­der­stand who is re­al­ly the guilty mind in this.”

Ho­sein added, “The ev­i­dence is clear, it could nev­er be a mis­take, it is a de­lib­er­ate de­sign to de­ceive the par­lia­ment. And yet, Ari­ma can­not break her si­lence.”

Gov­ern­ment min­is­ters sig­nalled the is­sue would not be dropped. John said she would refuse to en­gage with the sen­a­tors in com­mit­tee set­tings.

“I am be­yond an­noyed to sit with Sen­a­tor John-Bates and Al-Rawi. As a mat­ter of fact, I am go­ing to do just what they did in the com­mit­tee for na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, the joint se­lect. Be­cause Sen­a­tor Al-Rawi is on the en­er­gy com­mit­tee. And should he show up, we gonna show him the door. He got­ta go, he has to go. We’re not go­ing to sit with him. Be­cause that is the broth­er­hood of wrong­do­ers.”

Cou­va South MP Bar­ry Padarath al­so raised the prospect of po­lice in­volve­ment.

“With the fail­ure of the mem­ber for Ari­ma to act in the in­ter­est of the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go, we must very well call on the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice to de­ter­mine whether or not this is a mat­ter of mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice. Be­cause this is tam­per­ing with an is­sue where the Par­lia­ment, through its com­mit­tee, is de­ter­min­ing sev­er­al mat­ters, in­clu­sive of the con­duct of the for­mer mem­ber for St Joseph, for­mer Min­is­ter of Health.”

On the Op­po­si­tion bench, Trinci­ty/Mal­oney MP Camille Robin­son-Reg­is ac­knowl­edged con­cerns but urged a more mea­sured ap­proach.

“We all on this side agree was ill-ad­vised. Madame Speak­er, that, we all on this side agree, cre­at­ed the im­pres­sion of par­tial­i­ty and it ought nev­er to have oc­curred. But we must re­main dis­ci­plined in our analy­sis.”

She al­so al­leged breach­es on the Gov­ern­ment side.

“Some­body, some­body breached the stand­ing or­ders of the par­lia­ment by re­veal­ing what took place in-cam­era and that was al­so a con­tempt that has not been brought to light.”

Out­side the cham­ber, the po­lit­i­cal fall­out in­ten­si­fied.

In a state­ment, Per­sad-Bisses­sar ac­cused the Op­po­si­tion Leader of be­ing un­will­ing to act against Al-Rawi, claim­ing he was “pro­tect­ed by the PNM’s fake elite fi­nanciers.”

She ar­gued the walk­out came at a crit­i­cal mo­ment in the de­bate and re­flect­ed a re­fusal to demon­strate lead­er­ship.

The PNM, in its re­sponse, de­fend­ed its de­ci­sion, say­ing it “had no op­tion” but to leave what it de­scribed as a “de­lib­er­ate and co­or­di­nat­ed abuse of par­lia­men­tary pro­ce­dure.”

The par­ty ac­cused Gov­ern­ment mem­bers of breach­ing stand­ing or­ders through “the im­pu­ta­tion of im­prop­er mo­tives” and “of­fen­sive and in­sult­ing at­tacks”, and warned of “a break­down in the ba­sic stan­dards ex­pect­ed in the Par­lia­ment.”

It al­so raised con­cerns about what it de­scribed as an ero­sion of the Op­po­si­tion’s rights dur­ing the pro­ceed­ings.

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Shane Mo­hammed said the walk­out may have back­fired.

“You’re mak­ing track for agouti to run. They say you’re weak, you’re show­ing them that you’re weak, not strate­gic.”

He added, “Walk­ing out is run­ning away from fac­ing the mu­sic. Walk­ing out is cow­ard. They should have sit down there and bat­tled if they’re so hold­ing strong to it.”

The mo­tion was ul­ti­mate­ly passed with all mem­bers present vot­ing in favour and none against.

At­tempts to con­tact the Op­po­si­tion Leader and Op­po­si­tion Chief Whip for fur­ther com­ment were un­suc­cess­ful.